


but i always thought you were cool

by GoldStarGrl



Series: get back up breathing [2]
Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: Clinical Depression, F/M, POV Second Person, Sexual Harassment, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-06
Updated: 2016-08-06
Packaged: 2018-07-29 16:57:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7692358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GoldStarGrl/pseuds/GoldStarGrl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The rational part of you, the college-educated, third wave feminist with parents who love you, fights through the rest of your sluggish, listless, mind and screams at you to slap Jared.</p>
            </blockquote>





	but i always thought you were cool

Even at night, the heat of California rises off the pavement, warming your legs and making the air around you feel solid, thick.

You lean against the stone wall outside the incubator anyway to smoke, because Erlich is nothing if not the grandest hypocrite on the West Coast.

“Cannabis is a plant that promotes relaxation and little to no lung cancer, you ignorant slut.” He said, snatching your lighter out of your hand when you tried to light up in his kitchen. “Do not insult the hard-working pot dealers of UCLA by comparing their fine product to the thing that killed Betty Draper. Out, out.”

You’d told him to fuck off, but a break from the engineers was probably for the best. They were stuck on some math thing, and the longer they were stumped the more irritating they got. When you stepped outside, Dinesh and Gilfoyle’s sniping was turning into real, loaded insults, and Richard had started that whiny ranting thing he did when overwhelmed.

You feel stupid, around them. This whole town, this whole society where your value as a human being directly correlates with how well you can put together a box full of wires, makes you feel stupid. When you can summon the energy, it makes you angry, too. You were in AP Spanish and American History. In college you read three books of Allen Ginsberg poetry. You’re not the village idiot.

“Hey, do you know how to get to Taco Bell?” You jumped at the sound. Two of Erlich’s endless incubatees were walking out the front door, the typical mix of a reedy white guy, all red hair and an explosion of orange freckles, and his quiet Korean friend, backpacks slung over their shoulders. You shrug, pressing your lips together in a toothless smile that’s more of a line than anything.

“I don’t know. I don’t live around here.” Not to mention you hate Taco Bell, your white girl stomach can barely handle legitimate Mexican cuisine. Sometimes you throw up even if you’ve barely eaten anything all day.

“Oh yeah?” The white guy’s grin spreads into a smirk, familiar it’s it’s lasciviousness. “You a student or something? How old are you?”

You take another drag before answering. “Twenty-eight.”

“How old do you think I am?”

“Eighteen.” You say immediately. This interaction is exhausting and you desperately need it to be over without pissing him off, because the most dangerous thing in this town is a socially awkward white man with hurt feelings.

He blinks, rapidly. “Wow, how did you do that?”

“The freckles give you away.”

The blinking turns to a frown.

“You guys going on a food run?” Jared’s voice reaches you before he does. Standing in the transom in all his button-downed, khaki glory. You’ve never known anyone who looks more like an advertisement for an RA. The boys both slouch back.

“Yeah, whatever, we’re running late, so…” He grabs his friend’s arm. Jared watches them walk off the property as he walks over, drawing parallel to you.

“Can I sit here?” He asks politely, always polite, nodding at the ledge next to you. You nod, taking another long drag. His knee bumps against yours. _Long, long legs_. “When did you start smoking?”

“Fourteen.” You expect him to flinch, for his eyes to soften in reproachful concern, but he just nods.

“I took it up myself, for awhile. There wasn’t a lot of protein around the house I was living in.”

You feel a flash of annoyance at this, the way he always seems to have a pathetic or devastating story about his fucked-up childhood to splice into conversation, tinging it with sadness.

The feeling fades, though, quickly, because you also know he isn’t doing it on purpose, to induce guilt. It’s just the facts of his life; what else is he supposed to talk about?

“Everyone in my neighborhood did.” You tell him, truthfully. Becca Wiles offered you one when you were walking home from St. Mary’s. She said you needed to lighten up about your upcoming geometry test, and that “it’d help.” It did, sometimes. “I realized I’ve been smoking longer than I haven’t, so it doesn’t seem like something I’m likely to kick.”

“That’s a sad way to look at life.” Jared said, again in a sweet voice. It makes your stomach curdle.

“What’s up? Do you need me in there?”

“Oh, no. I just noticed…” He nodded, in the direction the kids walked off. You almost snort at the idea of Jared, the human equivalent of bleached taffy, defending anybody's honor. You swallow it. That’s what you do, you swallow this comeback and all others because your very presence as a tech illiterate in heels and silk blouses is a burden in this world, two strikes against you from the moment you walk in the door. Being pleasant is all you’ve got.

“Thanks.”

“At Vassar, I drove the Students Against Nighttime Assault golf cart for almost three years.” He said, sitting down on the stone ledge next to you. “Also, Richard needs some space so I thought I should step outside.”

He’s in love with Richard. You can see it on his face with the obvious intensity of a neon sign. The neuroticism and selfishness that turned you off the guy only seems to make Jared hang on tighter. You don’t think you’ve ever loved someone - something, anything - like that. You wonder what it might be like.

The rational part of you, the college-educated, third wave feminist with parents who love you, fights through the rest of your sluggish, listless, mind and screams at you to slap Jared. Tell him someone so nice, someone - incredibly - unbroken as him should not let himself get sucked into the self-destructive, narcissistic hellhole of the tech world.

He just stays, he stays and sits and smiles, placidly and with patience and faith and kindness, with those big fucking doe eyes, pointed at you.

So, instead you kiss him.

You just lean over and do it. No tongue. Luckily, whatever psychotic break you’re experiencing seems to slip back into lucidity fairly easily. You recoil before Jared even has a chance to respond. Which of course he won’t. _Kissing gay guys because you’re feeling bad about yourself is way too tenth grade, Monica._

“Shit.” You cough, letting your chin drop against your collarbone, gravity a weak excuse for the heat in your face. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay.” Jared pauses for a moment, his hands folded neatly in his lap. You pray to a vague Catholic energy that the earth open up in the middle of Erlich’s driveway and swallow you. “It was a nice kiss.”

“For a girl, you mean.” You chuckle, a little, try to play it off. Just goofing around.

Jared tilted his head. “What do you mean?”

“Just that…” Shards of ice tear through your stomach lining. “Nothing.” _Shit. Shit shit shit, why not throw yourself at a guy and then out him? Jesus Christ, this is why nobody likes you._

Jared’s eyes light up, and he laughs - a high, wheezing sort of laugh that always makes him sound like he might be crying.

“Oh Monica, I’m not gay.” He giggled. “I can understand your confusion - I’m not sure if you’re familiar with the Kinsey Scale, but I identify at somewhere around a 5, which-”

“Jared.” The marketer in you, the compulsion to translate nerdspeak into profitable civilian jargon, prompts.

“I guess you could say I’m mostly gay. But of my four relationships I’d consider serious, one was with a lovely young woman named Hil-”

You kiss him. Again. Like an _animal_. This time he kisses back for a moment before pulling away. His hands slide down to cup your waist as he looks at you, in the eye, seriously. His hands are thin and long and not as clammy as they look. _Piano fingers_ , your mind supplies randomly, like the malfunctioning, immolating computer it is.

“Do I have your permission-”

“Yeah, whatever.” You cut him off, cut off any sort of talk because words have always been the enemy, words drag the dead carcauses of stupid mistakes and dark feelings around and around in your head until you’ve talked yourself out of doing anything impulsive or really anything but retreating to your apartment to stare blankly into the next day. You flick the cigarette onto the ground and crush it with your shoe. “Yes.”

 _Because, fuck_ , Jared smiles guilelessly and offers you his hand into the garage, _it’s worth a shot, right?_

**Author's Note:**

> Large chunks of this totally didn't happen to your author at work this week. That would be crazy. Ha.


End file.
